Surely these women won't lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread, let me tell you that.
Of course, we knew that this meant an attack on the union. The bosses intended gradually to get rid of us, employing in our place child labor and raw immigrant girls who would work for next to nothing.
You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also.
The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth.
By working hard we could make an average of about $5 a week. We would have made more but had to provide our own machines, which cost us $45, we paying for them on the installment plan. We paid $5 down and $1 a month after that.
All the time our union was progressing very nicely. There were lectures to make us understand what trades unionism is and our real position in the labor movement.
I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.
I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship.
